Last night, Canadians had their first opportunity to hear directly from Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the inaugural leaders’ debate of #elxn42.

Canadians turn to Google for all sorts of reasons, but the trending questions we saw last night point towards a sense of curiosity about the big issues including the economy and the health of our democracy.

In terms of real-time search interest, we saw the highest number of searches for Justin Trudeau, followed by Stephen Harper. The peak moment for search volume related to the leaders was around 8:50, as Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair squared off about support for expanded pipelines into eastern Canada.

Mr. Trudeau generated a high volume of search interest across the country, as seen below:

There is still a long way to go before election day, but these searches show us that even on day four of the campaign, Canadians are eager to look beyond the sound bites and to learn more about the issues.

The Google Trends team will share regular updates throughout the election, so follow us at @googlecanada, or check back here for updates!